Terror in Spain

Almost 50 people killed in Iraq violence

The latest car bombs come just days after five people were killed in central Baquba.

Reuters: Mohammed Adnan

At least 47 people have been killed by car bombs, roadside bombs and shootings in Iraq, as tensions intensify between Sunni and Shi'ite Muslims across the Middle East, police and medical sources say.

The deadliest attack took place in central Baquba, 65 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, when a car bomb blew up near a housing complex, killing at least 11 people and wounding 34.

Further north, suspected militants killed five soldiers in an ambush on two taxis on route to Mosul.

"One of the cars escaped the ambush but the second one could not and the militants shot dead five soldiers and burned their bodies after they killed them," a senior intelligence military officer said.

Police said seven people were also killed and 30 others injured in two separate explosions in Madaen, 30 kilometres south-east of Baghdad.

Another two explosions took place in commercial areas in western and northern Baghdad, killing 12 people and wounding 45, police and medical sources said.

Roadside bombs also killed two members of a displaced Shi'ite family who had recently returned to their home in Baquba, police said.

No group immediately claimed responsibility for Sunday's attacks, but Sunni Islamist militants have been regaining momentum in their insurgency against the Shi'ite-led government in recent months, emboldened by the civil war in Syria.

Attacks intensify

Iraqis have suffered extreme violence for years, but since the start of the year Sunni Muslim insurgents have dramatically increased the intensity of attacks on civilians.

The civil war in neighbouring Syria has aggravated deep-rooted sectarian divisions and shaken Iraq's fragile coalition of Shi'ite, Kurdish and Sunni factions.

More than 1,000 died in July, the highest monthly death toll since 2008, according to the United Nations.

Bomb attacks have increasingly targeted cafes and other places where families gather, as well as the usual targets of military facilities and checkpoints.

The renewed violence, 18 months after the last US troops withdrew from Iraq, has sparked fears of a return to the scale sectarian slaughter in 2006 and 2007.